Very Large Telescope SINFONI User Manual
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EUROPEAN SOUTHERN OBSERVATORY Organisation Europ´eenepour des Recherches Astronomiques dans l'H´emisph`ereAustral Europ¨aischeOrganisation f¨urastronomische Forschung in der s¨udlichen Hemisph¨are ESO - European Southern Observatory Karl-Schwarzschild Str. 2, D-85748 Garching bei M¨unchen Very Large Telescope SINFONI User Manual VLT-MAN-ESO-14700-3517 Version 87, Date 2010/12/21 Prepared ..........................................D. N¨urnberger,C. Dumas Date Signature Approved ..........................................A. Kaufer Date Signature Released ..........................................C. Dumas Date Signature VLT Paranal Observatory ? Telephone: +56-55-435000 ? Fax: +56-55-435001 SINFONI User Manual | Version 87 VLT-MAN-ESO-14700-3517 ii Change Record Issue/Rev. Date Sect./Paragr. affected Reason/Initiation/Documents/Remarks Issue 1 01/09/2004 all First release, intended for phase 1 P75 Issue 1.1 21/10/2004 12 Template reference included for SV and GTO runs in Nov 2004. Issue 1.2 05/01/2005 Version prepared for phase 2 of P75. Issue 1.3 24/05/2005 Minor changes for phase 2 of P76. Issue 1.4 12/03/2006 all parts Added information on availability of LGS and RRM modes for P78. Issue 78.1 2006/04/24 cover & header Issue number aligned with new format requirements for module archivation. Issue 78.2 2006/06/07 cover & templates IP78 phase-2 (RRM, LGS, PRE- imaging; also, \AutoJitterOffset” tem- plate is not offered anymore). Issue 78.3 2006/06/25 cover & text Small changes, mostly typos and en- glish were corrected. Issue 79.1 2006/09/09 entire doc Fixed some small inconsistencies wrt Period 79. Issue 79.2 2006/11/27 entire doc Fixed some small inconsistencies throughout the text wrt grating wavelength range. Issue 80.1 2007/02/17 entire doc Update for P80 (Phase 1). Issue 80.2 2007/02/23 5 & 12 Added availability of fast acquisition template in service mode (waiver re- quired). Issue 80.3 2007/05/25 all sections Small changes for preparation of P80 (Phase 2), LGS infos updated. Issue 80.4 2007/06/13 2.1, 2.2, 12.2.3 Added infos about field selector orienta- tion and offsets in auto jitter template. Issue 81.1 2007/08/26 1.3, 2.1, 5.7, 8.2.2, 12.1 Some small updates for CfP81. Issue 81.2 2007/09/06 2.1 Orientation of Field-Selector updated. Issue 81.3 2007/09/10 2.1, 2.2, 8.2.2 Updated magnitude limits of TTS for LGS obs. Issue 81.4 2007/12/04 12.2 Update for P81, Phase 2; keyword change in auto jitter template. Issue 81.5 2007/12/05 12.2.2 Corrected sign error in caption of fig- ure related to generic offset sequence in SKY mode. Issue 82.1 2008/02/28 1.3, 2.2, 3.3, 7.2, 12.0 Offering LGS without TTS (SE mode) on a best effort basis for P82. Issue 82.2 2008/05/28 5.6, 12.2 Explanation of PA convention and re- turn to origin. SINFONI User Manual | Version 87 VLT-MAN-ESO-14700-3517 iii Issue/Rev. Date Sect./Paragr. affected Reason/Initiation/Documents/Remarks Issue 84 2010/01/20 1, 12.2.2; entire doc Update of the introduction section; clarification (additional explanations) of the SINFONI offset convention; general update of the entire document. Issue 87 2010/12/21 12, 12.3.4 Update for P87, Phase 2; a new tem- plate 'SINFONI ifs cal GenericOffset’ is available, to allow efficient PSF obser- vations in LGS-noTTS mode (Seeing Enhancer mode). SINFONI User Manual | Version 87 VLT-MAN-ESO-14700-3517 iv SINFONI in a Nutshell SINFONI is a near-infrared (1:1−2:45 µm) integral field spectrograph fed by a curvature sensing adaptive optics module. The spectrograph operates with 4 gratings (J, H, K, H+K) providing a spectral resolution around 2000, 3000, 4000 in J, H, K, respectively, and 1500 in H+K { each wavelength band fitting fully on the 2048 pixels of the Hawaii 2RG (2k×2k) detector in the dispersion direction. The SINFONI field of view on the sky is sliced into 32 slitlets. Pre-optics allow to chose the angular size of the slices on the sky. The choices are 250 mas, 100 mas and 25 mas, leading to field of views on the sky of 800 ×8" , 300 ×300 and 0.800 ×0.800 , respectively. Each one of the 32 slitlets is imaged onto 64 pixels of the detector. Thus, one obtains 32 × 64 = 2048 spectra of the imaged region of the sky. Typical limiting magnitudes (S/N = 10 in 1h on source) are around 17{18 mag in J, H, K. SINFONI can be used without adaptive optics guide star, in which case the AO module just acts as relay optics and the spatial resolution is dictated by the natural seeing. In that case, the recommended slice width is 250 mas for a 800 ×800 field of view. The full power of the instrument is, of course, achieved when an adaptive optics guide star is available. For best correction, the star should be brighter than R ∼ 11 mag. However, the AO can work (and will provide a moderate image quality improvement) with stars as faint as R ∼ 17 mag in the best seeing conditions. Ideally, the AO guide star should be as close as possible to the scientific target (if not the science target itself), and usually closer than 1000 . Depending on the atmospheric conditions (atmospheric coherence length and isoplanatic angle) the AO guide star could be chosen as far as 3000 for the AO system to still provide a mild improvement of the encircled energy. SINFONI has started operation with the Laser Guide Star (LGS) in Period 79. The system is still evolving and currently provides Strehl ratio in the 10-20% range, under excellent seeing conditions. Tip-Tilt Stars (TTS) as faint as R≤18 can be used, with a maximal separation of 1 arcmin from the science target. LGS requires CLEAR sky and is capable of non-negligeable improvement in image quality under the best seeing conditions. It is expected to benefit certain programs which could only be done in seeing limited mode before. Please note that the LGS mode (resp. NGS mode) so far does not support differential tracking between the Tip Tilt Star (resp. NGS star) and the science target. As a result, observations of some solar system targets might be affected. The SINFONI Instrument Operation Team is currently working on the implementation of differential tracking. A new LGS mode with no TTS (the so-called Seeing Enhancer mode, or SE mode) is available since Period 84. SINFONI User Manual | Version 87 VLT-MAN-ESO-14700-3517 v This page was intentionally left (almost) blank SINFONI User Manual | Version 87 VLT-MAN-ESO-14700-3517 vi Contents 1 Introduction1 1.1 Scope of this document...............................1 1.2 Structure of this document.............................1 1.3 Latest changes....................................1 1.4 Glossary.......................................2 1.5 Abbreviations and Acronyms.............................3 I Observing with SINFONI: from phase 1 to data reduction4 2 SINFONI Performance overview4 2.1 Reference source for wavefront sensing.......................4 2.2 Laser Guide Star (LGS) observations........................6 2.3 Spectrograph modes.................................7 2.4 RRM mode......................................7 2.5 Pre-Imaging mode..................................7 2.6 Saturation limits...................................8 2.7 Total instrument + telescope background......................8 2.8 Recommended DITs and NDITS, Object{Sky pattern...............8 3 Phase 1: applying for observing time with SINFONI 10 3.1 Is SINFONI the right instrument for your project?................. 10 3.1.1 The AO guide star.............................. 10 3.1.2 Limiting magnitudes............................. 10 3.2 The Exposure Time Calculator (ETC)........................ 11 3.3 Proposal form.................................... 11 4 Phase 2: Preparing your SINFONI observations 13 4.1 Do you have all information in hand?........................ 13 4.2 SINFONI specifics to templates, OBs, and p2pp.................. 14 4.2.1 Templates.................................. 14 4.2.2 Observing Blocks { OBs........................... 15 4.2.3 P2PP..................................... 16 4.3 Finding Charts, README Files and OB Naming Conventions........... 16 5 Observing with SINFONI at the VLT 17 5.1 Overview....................................... 17 5.2 Visitor Mode Operations............................... 17 5.3 The influence of the Moon.............................. 17 5.4 Target Acquisition.................................. 18 5.5 Measuring the Strehl ratios, reference PSF stars.................. 18 SINFONI User Manual | Version 87 VLT-MAN-ESO-14700-3517 vii 5.6 Orientation convention................................ 18 5.7 Offset conventions and definitions.......................... 19 5.8 Instrument and telescope overheads......................... 19 6 The SINFONI data reduction pipeline 21 6.1 Required Input Frames for the Pipeline....................... 21 6.1.1 Reference Files................................ 21 6.1.2 Raw frames................................. 21 6.1.3 Calibration Products............................. 22 6.2 Data Reduction Steps................................ 23 6.2.1 Detector Linearity and Bad Pixel Mask Determination........... 23 6.2.2 Bad Pixel mask and Master Dark Determination.............. 23 6.2.3 Master Spatial Flat and bad pixel determination.............. 24 6.2.4 Detector's distortion and slitlet distances determination.......... 24 6.2.5 Wavelength solution determination..................... 24 6.2.6 Standard star data reduction........................ 25 6.2.7 PSF data reduction............................. 25 6.2.8 Science observations............................. 25 II SINFONI: a detailed description of the instrument 26 7 General description 26 7.1 Observing with Adaptive Optics........................... 26 7.1.1 Atmospheric turbulence........................... 26 7.1.2 Adaptive Optics............................... 26 7.2 The Laser Guide Star mode............................. 28 7.2.1 Background information on LGS....................... 28 7.2.2 LGS mode at Paranal-UT4......................... 28 7.3 Observing in the Near-Infrared............................ 29 7.3.1 Atmospheric Transmission.......................... 29 7.3.2 Background Emission...........................